Can you imagine the 'powers that be' encouraging a kind of teaching that would actually encourage children to THINK?
Of course many (although probably not a majority? of teachers in some measure try. And, if we add in Librarians, they probably make an even better (less worse) showing....
--
But I thought another part of Arthur's posting was *obvious*: If one has large numbers of students, there is a lot of pressure to manage them bureaucratically. Indeed, is there any other way to coordinate large numbers?
The more people there are, the less individuality there can be. The exercise of the freedom to reproduce snuffs out many even if not all other goods in life, later if not sooner. The more people there are to be coordinated, the more levels of management are needed, and the greater inequalities among persons are generated. It simply is not possible to have ten levels of management culminating in a Trump or a Helms-ley in a small village. Conversely, a free-flowing dialog among more than maybe 8 or 10 persons -- at most - is not possible.
The medium is the co-message.
Just say No! to crowding (unless you really enjoy being depersonalized -- OK, maybe you are the CEO or the STAR, then I understand how you can love the crowd: from ABOVE it...).
\brad mccormick
Then how would these children become adults who would fit into the economic system as it exists in our societies?
Obviously a major function of the schools is to socialize children to accept the prevailing ideologies so that those in power can continue to remain in power.
What is done in the schools is reinforced by socialization processes in the home which encourage competition and 'winning'; it is also reinforced in institutionalized religion which preaches conforming to prevailing institutions as moral; having to 'make a living' is, of course, a major inducement to conform and to NOT think because that would 'upset the applecart'.
Nothing terribly profound about any of this' it seems clear and obvious to me.
Selma
----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, July 21, 2003 2:54 PM
Subject: [Futurework] TEACHING METHODS
From http://www.newsscan.com/
WORTH THINKING ABOUT: WHY DO TEACHING METHODS CHANGE SO SLOWLY? Wondering, "How can we account for the persistence of a mode of teaching that has so many critics, so many obvious faults?" author Parker J. Palmer explains: "Some say that lecturing, assigning readings, and giving tests is simply the easiest way to teach, and that teachers (like everyone else) will take the line of least resistance. Others argue that mass education has forced this method upon us: how else do you teach a class of two hundred except with managerial techniques? Still others blame educational economics, pointing out that our underfunded schools are unable to buy the time or staff necessary for more personal and interactive modes of
teaching
and learning. "All of these explanations are factual and reasonable, but nothing
in
history would ever have changed if facts and reasons could not be
overcome.
Laziness, conceptions of efficiency, and budgets are not forced upon us by cosmic superpowers. They are all matters of choice, and we always have the freedom to choose otherwise. Why do we not choose otherwise? Why does this pedagogy persist? "The critics have come closer to the answer by suggesting that this style of teaching persists because it gives teachers power. With power comes security: the security of controlling the classroom agenda, of avoiding serious challenges to one's authority, of evading the embarrassment of getting lost in territory where one does not know the way home. Teachers are unlikely to relinquish such power even in the face of students who hunger for another way to learn. "But that is only half the story. Students themselves cling to the conventional pedagogy because it gives them security, too, a fact well known by teachers who have tried more participatory modes of teaching.
When
a teacher tries to share the power, to give students more responsibility for their own education, students get skittish and cynical. They complain that the teacher is not earning his or her pay, and they subvert the experiment by noncooperation. Many students prefer to have their learning boxed and tied, and when they are invited into a more creative role they flee in fear. "The conventional pedagogy persists because it conveys a view of reality that simplifies our lives. By this view, we and our world become objects to be lined up, counted, organized and owned, rather than a community of selves and spirits related to each other in a complex web of accountability called 'truth.' The conventional pedagogy pretends to give us mastery over the world, relieving us of the need for mutual vulnerability that the new epistemologies, and truth itself, imply." *** See
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060664517/newsscancom/ref=nosim
for "To Know as We Are Known" by Parker J. Palmer -- or look for it in your favorite library. (We donate all revenue from our book
recommendations
to adult literacy programs.)
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--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------------------------------------------- Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
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